I have to say that I am disappointed in the reception that Rob, a long standing and loyal FUNHL GM, has received on his visit to Calgary. Rob lives in Nova Scotia and its likely he won't be here all that often or that his fellow GMs will visit him in Nova Scotia. If ANY one of you was in town from far away, I know that I would make the effort to see you. But hey, maybe its just me over-reacting and really, Rob ain't all that important. Its just a hockey pool right?

11/29/2008

11/28/2008

"See" everyone at 10am on Sunday. All drops are announced well in advance so we shouldn't need time to figure out stats of those players. To those (cough,cavemen) that need this information - the FUNHL blog has links to several good sources.

Well, it appears I'm having one guest at my place as of right now... I'll make our faraway guest welcome on behalf of the FUNHL and maybe everyone can see him the next time he drops into town (Rob, hope you will be are hungry and thirsty man - the cupboards and bar are loaded). We'll likely be on MSN before 10to chat with anyone around / make 3+ way trades etc. I'll get some booze into Rob before noon (although it will be past noon his time so he might have the upper hand on me).

Anybody else that wants to join us - let me know. My address is #310, 2000 Citadel Meadow Pt. NW. West on country hills past Nosehill drive, right on Citadel Way (at the 7-11) and proceed until you see a school on the right - my condo complex is on the left (across the street), building 2000 (2nd building in).

Please email me in advance if you are going to show up or call me on cell phone at 403-605-4192 as I currently have no landline / can't buzz up (so I need to arrange in advance to come downstairs and let you in - yes, I will be getting a landline again for those of you - i.e. Bob, Doug, Rob - that are annoyed with me ;-)

Bob, or someone else, when all the drops become official at noon could they be posted in the comments of this entry. I don't expect mine to change - though trade lines are open :-) - so I'm simply going to add mine right now.

11/25/2008

- The Leafs deal Steen and Colaiocovo to the Blues for Stempniak. Whoopee Ding Dong.

Three years ago the Leafs bailed on a deal for Chris Pronger because the GM (Ferguson) didn't want to include Steen in the deal.

My how times have changed.

Instead of dealing the useful third line center for an all-star defenseman they wait a few years and trade him for an undersized speed winger - it's Jason Blake, the sequel!

- There was an excellent analysis of how far the Senators have fallen in the Globe, here's the money quote;

"Chara, Redden, Havlat, Corvo, Eaves. For these players, the Senators have nothing to show today. No team so mismanaged can remain competitive. Coming up empty for these five, coupled with indifferent draft picks, plus those end-of-season Muckler trades, meant that past mistakes suddenly caught up with the Senators."

Couple this with the Bob Clarkeian way they have handled their goaltending situation and it's just a mess.

I don't see the solution being Steve Yzerman, but Muckler has probably run out of time.

- The Brian Burke watch is in full swing now, and I have to admit, he's probably the best guy for the job. If nothing else he and Wilson will have a field day with the rabid cool-aid drinking Leafs Nation reporters.

- Edge fans have probably noticed that Ovechkin seems to have gotten over his early season funk as he has averaged over 2ppg the last 11. Can a Thornton renaissance be far behind?

- No doubt that Finheads have noticed the corresponding decline in scoring by Alexander Semin.

- Last year Evgeni Nabokov and Sergei Gonchar played huge roles for the Severed Heads cup victory. Both were subsequently first round picks (to the Edge and Bladerunners respectively) and both have been almost total duds.

Which just goes to prove that past performance predicts future performance ...until it doesn't.

- For the record; Ty Conklin is making Heads mgt very, very angry. He sucks up all the 'easy' starts as the Red Wings backup ensuring that Osgood has both plenty of rest and the toughest competition. Hate isn't a strong enough word. Heads mgt thought for sure we were over this kind of drama with the departure of the Dominator for Czech pastures.

- Immediately following the 'year of the goaltender'; Nabokov, Luongo, Brodeur, inflated stats, etc., we see something of a market correction taking place. None of last years top three franchise netminders is currently in the top 10, and only Lundqvist of the FP goaltenders is having a followup season worthy of last years numbers.

So who is the 'new guard'? Tim Thomas, Nik Backstrom, Alex Auld and Erik Ersberg are currently producing WAY above normal numbers (actually Backstrom is probably not a surprise). All of which leads me to think another market correction is probably coming that will restore Luongo etc. back to their rightful place in the netminder firmament.

- In 2003 Calgary used the 9th pick to select Dion Phaneuf, and then in the 2nd round selected Swiss league defender Tim Ramholt (now since traded to Philly for bubble gum and a box of pucks). But what if we had grabbed this guy instead?

- 'O Brother, where art thou'? The Wolves picked both the Sedins to play key roles for them, and the Shadowmen drafted both the Kostitsyn boys for their squads. Neither team is enjoying the results all that much. The Shadowmen are in 8th and the Wolves are five points out of last place.

- The comparison of Johan Franzen to Thomas Holmstrom is apt. Both have identical point values so far this season. Also they are both so slow they couldn't beat each other in a foot race.

- Speaking of the Red Wings, Jiri Hudler has one of the best nicknames - 'The Hobbit'.

I for one, will always remember Hudler thusly, in which Phaneuf says 'hello' to the Hobbit;

Every year there are players who despite our advanced scouting systems nevertheless manage to slip through the fingers of crack GMs. Here are five rooks we blew it on this year;

Grabovsky has the most upside in terms of talent(+ potential PIM as he is an irritating SOB on the ice). Of the five only Kulemin was on my list as a possible prospect draft candidate, while Moller had made the list as a deep, deep, deep long shot.

Unfortunately, Versteeg was nowhere in my scouting report.

- Last but not least, the trade rumours involving Marian Gaborik are everywhere. Personally, I like one of two options; to Pittsburgh for Whitney, picks and prospects, or to Vancouver for....?

The key problem is that unless you rework his contract upon arrival all you get is a rental.

So Wendel Clark was honoured by Leafs fans and Mgt for his years of service working in the center of the universe for the team that God hates most. My favourite Wendel memory is the above clip of him destroying defenseman Bruce Bell (who? exactly). After seeing him deliver the goods I was permanently a fan.

That all said, seeing that hit did remind me of something else...

Curiously, there was no 'controversy' over Clark's hammer job on Bell.

11/23/2008

My trial is done and I'm exhausted - but we do need stats to determine our WD draft order. These stats do not include Sunday's two games - which I think have a boatload of pts for Cam helping him win his game this week and perhaps move down a slot in the draft order. I'll try and get those out by tomorrow.

One quick note, I think I have everyone's stats correct now (and have improved my spreadsheet by including a new "double-check" mechanism that should indicate when I have a simple error). One, different, simple error turned up when I was inputting this week's line-ups that had an impact on the Challenge Cup standings. In week 5 I had Dan playing 4 right-wingers (I had him dressing the Waived Langenbrunner in addition to his regular trio). Those extra two pts gave Dan a win in his Challenge Cup game against the Highlanders instead of a tie. The standings have been altered to reflect what actually happened - sorry that I didn't catch this earlier.

Remember all final WD drops must be submitted by noon Friday, after which there are no changes (and consequently no trades involving dropped players) as in effect they are no longer on your team after Friday noon...

I discoverd that the same problem I was finding with Darrel's stats was showing up with almost everyone's (the weekly totals were correct but the overall totals would miss promoted/traded/ww pick-up players. I hope that is now corrected.

11/13/2008

The H to H game of the week - at least from this author's perspective and probably GM Mann too ;-) - was looking pretty good for the Bladerunners after amassing a large lead during the first 3 days of the week, but the PV had a great Thursday night and have tied up the game (my stats indicate BR 29 and PV 28.5 thru Thur).

Hossa is outmatched by Datsyuk, Zetterberg and Lidstrom so we'll see how htings look after Friday night.

This exciting blog posting brought to you by the Nexux.

p.s. Darrell - what's the name of your building again?? was going to say Barnburner at the xxxxx but couldn't remember.

11/11/2008

Here are some questions I have for poolies re: look of the blog. Cut loose in the comment sections with your thoughts on the following options;

- I can very easily return us to the 'original' look the blog has had since it first got set up. Blue background, small header font, Verdant typeface, tan body/black lettering, the works.

Personally, I'm over the generic blog look and want to find something else, but am agnostic about changing it. If the pool really likes the old look, I get it I'll stop messing around. Lets consider this to be the default position.

- As far as colour schemes and themes go, I'm wide open to suggestions, and would like your feedback to the following;

A. A rather serious technical issue; to video or not to video? I can add a gadget in the sidebar that searches for NHL highlights on YouTube, or for a top player from the top FUNHL team for the week (which spreads the wealth more evenly, even the bottom dwellers can win a week once a while). The issue is going to be for those with slower connections speeds, and to be frank, simpler may be best here because if even one GM finds loading the blog to be a horror show we shouldn't do it. However, how cool would it be to check the standings and find random highlights of your Fp waiting for you?

B. The pool originates in Calgary and I am personally a Flames fan, but we are no longer all Calgarians by nature or location. I've been using Iggy and Phaneuf as banner guys, but I think I have a solution that is fair to everyone. Especially me. Shouldthe banner player - and to some extent colour scheme reflect an FP from the Predator Cup winning team?

In my case then Heatley or Malkin would be my nominations - I'd modify the colours to make use of whatever picture I find of the player that makes a good banner (ie. the current scheme with a Heatley home jersey picture wouldn't be terrible)

C. The alternative to this is to continue to feature a Flames player feature (Iggy, Phaneuf, Kipper, Bertuzzi, etc) and colour scheme.

Red isn't my favourite blog colour (I liked the calm tory blue but it clashed badly with Phaneuf), but the latest look is probably the best I've come up with. I've had too many people object to the black background white text, so whatever scheme we use is, it won't be the black background one I experimented with earlier.

D. I could go super bland. White background, black text, few gadgets, trim the blogroll etc, and go with a plain text title. Call it the minimalist option.

E. Screw it lets return to the 'original layout'.

Don't forget to add comments to the post as feedback along with the poll, and I think you can vote more than once if you want to say add video AND have the look of a Flames blog;

11/10/2008

Congrats to the Vendetta as they remain atop the standings. Congrats too to the Black Hawks/Great Whites who managed to beat up on Kipper and my Highlanders to snatch a win away from on the last night.

As always, if my stats do not look like yours - let me know.

Darrelly, not sure if I've fixed that TG question yet or not, Sophia was up a few times last night so I'm pretty zonked today and clear thinking is not a strong suit today. Let me know where we sit on your stats as of the end of week 5.

As I've been saying, I'm in the midst of some rather busy files at work so my appologies for not keeping up with the stats as per my regular habit. The good news is that once we are out of November it looks like much clearer sailing.

That said, here are the stats as of last night's (Saturday) games.

I know that a couple of you have noted some differences with your stats. I'm trying to keep up but if I drop the ball on responding to you - keep at it, it's nothing personal just trying to keep up with the torrent of e-mail (a distressing amount of which has little or no relevance to the pool).

I am noting that my attempt to "reverse engineer" the goalie stats to accomodate the NHL's new stats package (die Gary Bettman die) being used by CBS Sportsline, among others, is already starting to generate minor discrepancies - which will only grow with time. Yahoo appears to be generating the correct stats, and producing them as same, but I have yet to convert the current spreadsheet to use the Yahoo stats and, unfortunately, don't believe I will be able to make that conversion until early December at the earliest. Please keep an eye on things, particularly if there are very close Challenge Cup games, so we don't lose sight of things.

Back to the current stats. Congrats to the Personal Vendetta who seem to be holding on to a very narrow lead at the moment and to the Bladerunners who have had a phenomenal week thus far to threaten our leader.

I'll try and make sure that the final stats for the week get out tomorrow as well. Until then, trade-lines are open.

BTW, thanks to Bob and others for posting the line-ups on the blog - it is so much faster to go through one blog post to find the line-ups as opposed to multiple e-mails. Very, very helpful.

11/07/2008

Bladerunners war chant! More crazy games like last night please!! And our friend Doug is happy too because Kipper gets the win. Wait, we didn't make that rule change. Oh well. Not so good that my archenemy of the week got points from Bertuzzi but hey - as a Flames fan, I'm happy that the guy is helping replace offence of Huselius + Tanguay (and he even had a +2 rating last night!)

Again, sorry for the delay - it has been a very rough week at work and November looks like a nightmare. To cap it off my lovely daughter decided to go to town on her hair with a pair of scissors. No, this was not a little trim, rather think Sinead O'Conner. As soon-to-be President Obama would say, it was a "teaching moment" and when the shock finally wears off her horrified father, it will become a wedding day story I look forward to tell.

That said, congrats to the Vendetta for moving into first place. I have tried to correct a couple of mistakes from past weeks that I only just noticed but if your numbers differ from mine (Mr. Mann, please double check as I don't know if my quick review caught the problem you were noting) please let me know and, if possible, try and give me a detailed breakdown as that makes it easier to pin-point the potential problem.